“It was a male man,” says Lucinda Dagget, “else why did she call him Hugh? You have all heerd Elder Morton say that his wife hadn’t a relative on earth, except a mother and a maiden aunt. It couldn’t have been her mother, and it couldn’t have been the maiden aunt, for her name was Martha instead of Hugh; besides,” she continued, (she had so hardened her mind with mathematics that she could grapple the hardest fact, and floor it, so to speak,) “besides, the maiden aunt died six months ago, that settles the matter conclusively, it was not the maiden aunt.” “I have thought something was on the Elders’ mind, for quite a spell, I have spoke to sister Gowdy about it a number of times,” then she kinder rolled up her eyes just as she does in conference meetin’s, and says she, “it is an awful dispensation, but I hope he’ll turn it into a means of grace, I hope his spiritual strength will be renewed, but I have borryed a good deal of trouble about his bein’ so handsome, I have noticed handsome ministers don’t turn out well, they most always have somethin’ happen to ’em, sooner or later, but I hope he’ll be led.” “I never thought that Miss Morton was any too good.” “Neither did I,” said Lucinda Dagget. “She has turned out jest as I always thought she would,” says Ophelia, “and I think jest as much of her, as I do of them that stand up for her.” Maggie Snow spoke up then, jest as clear as a bell her voice sounded. She hain’t afraid of anybody, for she is Lawyer Snow’s only child, and has been to Boston to school. Says she “Aunt Allen,” she is a little related to me on her mother’s side. “Aunt Allen, why is it as a general rule, the worst folks are the ones to suspect other people of bein’ bad.” Says I, “Maggy, they draw their pictures from memery, they think, ‘now if _I_ had that opportunity to do wrong, I should certainly improve it--and so of course _they_ did.’ And they want to pull down other folks’es reputations, for they feel as if their own goodness is in a totterin’ condition, and if it falls, they want somethin’ for it to fall on, so as to come down easier like.” Maggy Snow laughed, and so did Squire Edwards’ wife, and the Jones’es--but Betsey Bobbet, and the Dagget girls looked black as Erobius. And says Betsey Bobbet to me, “I shouldn’t think, Josiah Allen’s wife, that _you_ would countenance such conduct.” “I will first know that there is wrong conduct,” says I--“Miss Morton’s face is just as innocent as a baby’s, and I hain’t a goin’ to mistrust any evil out of them pretty brown eyes, till I am obleeged to.” “Well, you will have to believe it,” says Ophelia Dagget--“and there shall be somethin’ done about it as sure as my name is Ophelia Dagget.” “Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone,” says Miss Squire Edwards--a better Baptist women never lived than she is.